New rules could force companies to use a symbol or print a QR code on the label of their products if they are genetically modified. The law would not take effect immediately, though. The Senate passed the measure last week, advancing the bill on to the House this week, and now it heads to President Obama’s desk to sign into law.
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Campbell’s began voluntarily labeling its products containing GMO ingredients in January.
“There’s a segment of the population that enjoys reading food labels”, said Michael Swanson, chief agricultural economist at Wells Fargo. The U.S. House voted overwhelmingly Thursday for a federal bill that would preempt Vermont’s first-in-the-nation labeling law.
“This decision proves Congress understands the need for a national standard, not a patchwork system, when it comes to those supplying food and animal feed, and those purchasing it“, she said.
But with the phone and QR code options-which a study by the Food Marketing Institute, an industry group, found could only be scanned by 20 percent of shoppers-included in the bill, many pro-labeling groups remain staunchly opposed.
The federal law also pre-empts a drive in the ME statehouse to remove the trigger provision that requires adjacent states to also pass their own laws. That, of course, is precisely why manufacturers, for the most part, were in favor over an overarching federal law that is less stringent and, shall we say, more pliable to gobbledygook and obfuscation.
Gary Hirshberg, chairman of the Just Label It coalition, released a statement sayin that “the fight for national mandatory GMO transparency now shifts to USDA and to the marketplace, where companies should think twice before they remove GMO labels from their packages”. “QR codes and telephone numbers do not meet that definition. It’s a shame that Congress chose to replace our standard with a weaker one that provides multiple ways for the food industry to avoid transparent labeling”.
In other words, a national labeling standard might be a blessing for companies anxious that existing state labels make their products look risky to customers.
And the NYT’s Strom observes that “the wrangling over how the language of the law will be interpreted and put into practice will probably go on for years”, and eventually wind up in court.
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U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Oklahoma, has led the House Science Committee’s bipartisan roundtable to discuss GMO science.
